Archive for
December 7th, 2011

According to its website, Carrier IQ claims that its software is deployed in more than 141 millions handsets. Many of the major carriers and handset makers preinstall Carrier IQ on the handsets they sell, including AT&T, T-mobile, Apple, HTC etc. The software is nothing different from a rootkit, it records all keystrokes you make on your handset, the sites you visit, the sms messages you send and receive, and many more.

Besides a website, the server running this blog also hosts an Internet Music broadcasting radio. Do you see the “Listen Music” Link on the home page, top right corner of the page – http://danasmera.com:8000/listen.pls?sid=1 ? It is running on an AWS ec2 microinstance, which does not cost much. So how do you turn your public facing server into an internet radio, accessible from your pc, laptop or mobile phone. It is quite simple, some of the most popular solutions are Ice cast and shoutcast. Here is how you can setup an Internet broadcast radio using shoutcast.

4. Time to edit two important config files: sc_serv_basic.conf and sc_trans_basic.conf

a. sc_serv_basic.conf

logfile=logs/sc_serv.log
w3clog=logs/sc_w3c.log
banfile=control/sc_serv.ban
ripfile=control/sc_serv.rip
publicserver=always</code>
<code>password=yourpasswordhere</code> #this password is used by sc_trans, make sure to use same password in sc_trans_basic.conf
<code>adminpassword=yourpasswordhereagain</code> #this password is used to access the admin page through your browser
<code>streamid=1
streampath=/test.aac

streamauthhash_1=AcMnKLMrYVmK2NlR9W8j #unique for each station, Needed if you plan to make your station publicly available.

b. sc_trans_basic.conf

logfile=logs/sc_trans.log
calendarrewrite=0
encoder_1=aacp</code> ## uploaded mp3 music files will be played as AAC
<code>bitrate_1=56000
outprotocol_1=3
serverip_1=127.0.0.1</code> ##listen only on loopback interface
<code>serverport_1=8000
uvoxauth_1=yourpasswordhere </code> ## This password has to be the same as 'password' in sc_serv_basic.conf
<code>uvoxstreamid_1=1
endpointname_1=/Bob
streamtitle=Eritrean and Ethiopian Guayla
streamurl=http://danasmera.com:8000/listen.pls?sid=1
genre=Tigrigna Guayla
playlistfile=playlists/main.lst</code> ## the file contaning the path to individual music files, we will populate this later.
<code>adminport=7999
adminuser=administrator
adminpassword=yourdminpasshere

5. Upload your music files

Upload all your music files to the /home/shoutcast/music directory. Use any sftp client, such as winscp or filezilla for this task. Sample output –

9. Register your shoutcast radio with yp.shoucast.com to make it publicly available station.

Follow the instructions on this wiki on how to do this – http://wiki.winamp.com/wiki/SHOUTcast_Authhash_Management
In short – Go to your admin page eg. http://yourip-or-domain:8000/admin.cgi
Click the “Create Authhash” link, and after filling out the form, make sure the appropriate entry is added to the streamauthhash_1 parameter in your sc_serv_basic.conf file.

10. Enjoy the music!

One way to listen the music is by directly browsing to the link as in http://danasmera.com:8000/listen.pls?sid=1 or http://yourip-or-hostname:8000/listen.pls?sid=1 in its generic form. But the most convenient one is to use your mobile phone app to search for your station in the shoutcast yellow pages, and add it to your favorites list. In Android mobile phones – download “A Online Radio” app from the Market, open it and search for a keyword. In my case it could be “tigrigna” or “guayla”, that is the keyword i added when registering my station to the yellow pages. The stations pops up in the search results, just click to play it. For an iphone, you can use the ‘shoutcast’ app.

Finally, keep an eye on the log files in /home/shoutcast/logs, some of the information you will find there includes the music files played, your listeners ip addresses etc. You might use the following command for instance to sort out the IP addresses of the listeners –